Dinesh's photos with the keyword: Howard Nemerov

A peels an apple, while B kneels to God, C telephones to D, who has a hand on E's knee, F coughs, G turns up the sod For H's grave. I do not understand But J is bringing on clay pigeon down While K brings down a nightstick on L's head, And M makes mustard, N drives into town, O goes to bed with P, and Q drops dead, R lies to S, but happens to be heard By T, who tells U not to fire V For having to give W the word that X is not deceiving Y with Z, Who happens just now to remember A Peeling an apple somewhere far away. "A Premier of the Daily Round" ~ Howard Nemerov

....................................................... And think also how funny knowledge is: You may succeed in learning many trees And calling off their names as you go by, But their comprehensive silence stays the same. Excerpt: "Learning the Trees" ~ Howard Nemerov "On the last day of the world I would want to plant a tree." ― W.S. Merwin

Before you can learn the trees, you have to learn The language of the trees. That’s done indoors, Out of a book, which now you think of it Is one of the transformations of a tree. The words themselves are a delight to learn, You might be in a foreign land of terms Like samara, capsule, drupe, legume and pome, Where bark is papery, plated, warty or smooth. But best of all are the words that shape the leaves— Orbicular, cordate, cleft and reniform— And their venation—palmate and parallel— And tips—acute, truncate, auriculate. ........................................ And think also how funny knowledge is: You may succeed in learning many trees And calling off their names as you go by, But their comprehensive silence stays the same. Excerpt: "Learning the Trees" ~ Howard Nemerov

................................ I cried because life is hopeless and beautiful. And like a child I cried myself to sleep High in the head of the house, feeling the hull Beneath me pitch and roll among the steep Mountains and valleys of the many years That brought me to tears. Down in the cellar, furnace and washing machine, Pump, fuse-box, water heater, work their hearts Out at my life, which narrowly runs between Them and this cemetery of spare parts For discontinued men, whose hats and canes Are my rich remains. And women, their portraits and wedding gowns Stacked in the corners, brooding in wooden trunks; And children’s rattles, books about lions and clowns; And headless, hanging dresses swayed like drunks Whenever a living footstep shakes the floor; I mention no more; But what I thought today, that made me cry, Is this, that we live in two kinds of thing: The powerful trees, thrusting into the sky Their black patience, are one, and that branching Relation teaches how we endure and grow; The other is the snow, Falling in a white chaos from the sky, As many as the sands of all the seas, As all the men who died or who will die, As stars in heaven, as leaves of all the trees; As Abraham was promised of his seed; Generations bleed, Till I, high in the tower of my time Among familiar ruins, began to cry For accident, sickness, justice, war and crime, Because all died, because I had to die. The snow fell, the trees stood, the promise kept, And a child I slept. Excerpt: "The view from the attic window" ~ Howard Nemerov